Subject: IN THE BEGINNING - GOD!
Scripture: Genesis 1:1-2; John 1:1-3.
Text: Genesis 1:2: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
We live in a Universe so vast that it is beyond the power of the human mind even to imagine its greatness.
The earth we live on is a part of the solar system of planets and other heavenly bodies that revolve around the sun. To try to get an idea of the size of our own solar system apart from the rest of the Universe is more than enough to stagger the imagination of the mind of a normal person.
It was looked upon as a pretty big thing when the Russians and then our own scientists set off rockets which could reach to the moon. And if they keep on with their space efforts, it seems highly probable that within the next few years they will indeed be able to send a man to the moon, with the hope, of course, that he will not only be able to get there but also will be able to return safely and tell us about his trip and what he found there. Such an event as that will no doubt be hailed as one of the great achievements of our age.
But if you have ever wondered why the moon has been selected as the first of the heavenly bodies to be visited by a United States space ship, one of the reasons among others is that comparatively speaking the moon is right on our doorsteps - only about 228,000 miles away, or not as far away as the distance it would take to go around the earth itself ten times. Only a mere 228,000 miles to the moon, compared to the fact that the earth is 93,000,000 miles from the sun; the planet Mars is around 47,000,000 miles further out in space; the planet Jupiter is around 343,000,000 miles still further out; Saturn about 390,000,000 miles on beyond Jupiter; Uranus over 900,000,000 miles on beyond Saturn; Neptune around a 1,014 million miles on beyond that; with the planet Pluto, the furthest known planet in our solar system unless there has been another recently discovered, being over three and a half billion miles from the earth. And a billion miles, if you aren't sure about it, is a thousand million miles! No wonder our scientists want to get a space ship to the moon and safely back before they begin visiting the other planets in our own solar system. According to the mathematicians and astronomers and scientists, the solar system of which our earth is a part is billions upon billions of miles in diameter.
Now, think for a moment about the fact that vast though our solar system is, it is only a very tiny part of a giant galaxy of stars known as the Milky Way, a galaxy thought to contain around a hundred thousand million - or one hundred billion - stars. Just think: being a part of a galaxy of stars numbering around one hundred billions.
But there is more to the Universe than the galaxy of stars of which we are a part. Astronomers tell us that they have already found over a billion galaxies of stars in the Universe, and say that some of the stars are so big that a million times a million little earths like ours could fit inside them.
Frankly, we've long since left the place where I could imagine the vastness of which the astronomers speak. But try to stretch your imagination a bit more. The speed at which light travels is said to be 186,000 miles a second. At that rate of speed, if a person could get on a ray of light and use it for transportation, he could go to the moon and back - a round trip of 456,000 miles - in less than three seconds - less than the time it has taken me to say this sentence.
Now, we have talked about the billions of stars in the Milky Way, some of which are said to be not thousands, not merely millions, but many, many billions of times the size of the earth. If all of those billions of stars were placed side by side, it would make a galaxy or system of stars so vast that it is beyond the power of our minds to truly picture how many, many countless billions of miles it would be from one side to the other. Yet the fact is that the stars are not side by side. They are spread out in the sky so far apart that we are told that the nearest star to the earth is so far distant that the distance from us is measured not in millions or in billions of miles, but in light years - the distance that light, traveling at the rate of 186,000 miles per second, can travel in an entire year. The astronomers tell us that the nearest star to us is still so far away that its light, traveling at the rate of 186,000 miles per second, takes 4.3 years to reach the earth.
A hundred billion stars in one galaxy, over a billion known galaxies already discovered by astronomers, some stars billions of times larger than the earth, and yet the individual stars so far apart that their distances are measured in light years instead of in the millions or billions of miles.
There are various theories as to how wide or how deep space is, as to how far it is across the entire Universe. One theory is that it is so far across the Universe that if you would get on a ray of light and travel at the rate of 186,000 miles per second, it would take you 100,000,000 light years to get to the half-way mark, just half-way across, or 200,000,000 light years to make the entire journey.
Another theory is simply to the effect that the Universe is so large that it just goes on forever and forever and forever.
Either way you take it, the fact is plain that the Universe is so vast that it is beyond the power of our minds to imagine how large it really is. To even think about it properly is to sense that we are dealing with that which has to do with Eternity ... with that which is beyond the little boundaries of time and space that we are personally acquainted with.
There is so much that the astronomers and scientists do not know about this vast Universe in which we live that what little they do know seems much as a small pebble of knowledge compared with the Eternal wisdom of the Rock of Ages. And they have probably made a few wrong calculations in the figures which I have been quoting, though I have read enough about astronomy to realize that they know far more about what they are speaking than the average person dreams that they do.
But limited though our knowledge of the Universe may be, enough is known to help us to realize that it is such a vast world that our minds cannot even imagine its greatness. It almost makes me feel dizzy to even try to imagine it!
Now we come to our subject - one of the most interesting questions to many people in the entire world, a question that probably most of us have thought about at one time or another and wondered about to some degree: Namely, How did this great and vast Universe come into existence? Of course we have the plain Bible answer that God made it which, I suppose, most of us accept. Many people, however, do not believe in God. What can be said to them concerning the beginning of the Universe?
And do not think for one moment, either, that when we talk about the beginning of the Universe, we are not talking about a religious question but have gotten over into the field of science and simply things material. One of the most important religious questions a person can face is that concerning the beginning of the world. The purpose of life, the meaning of life, the nature of life, the goals of life, the requirements of life, the standards of life are all affected tremendously by what one believes about the creation of the world.
The desire of mankind to try to unravel the mysteries of the past, the efforts of the scientists and astronomers and geologists and archeologists as well as of religious people to try to get back through the ages to discover how and why this world came to be is not simply a matter of idle curiousity. Much of it is an effort to try to find the real meaning of this world and of life. There is the hope in the minds of many non-religious people, I feel sure, that if only they can discover the nature of the Universe and find out how it began, they can then find the solution to the meaning of the world and of life and discover something more of what the future has in store.
If the Universe came into being simply as the result of blind chance, then it follows that it has no real purpose for its existence, and life has no logical meaning.
If the Universe came into being simply as the result of the interaction of non-intelligent forces, then it follows that the world has no heart, no soul, and to pray is basically to cry out to deaf and dumb neutrons, protons, and the like.
If the Universe came into being as the deliberate act of creation of an intelligent and eternal Being, however, then it follows that the meaning of the Universe, the purpose of life, and the standards and rules by which man is to live are all related to the nature and the purpose of the Creator.
What can we say with certainty, then, about the beginning of the Universe?
One thing that can be said with little fear of contradiction by anyone other than perhaps a few scattered individuals who have gotten away both from the Bible and the generally accepted teachings of science is that the Universe as we know it certainly did have a beginning. It did not always exist. There was a time when the earth we are now living on had not come into being. There was a time when the sun had not come into existence and the stars had not yet been born. There was a time when there was no sun revolving through the skies, no planets revolving around the sun, no day, no night, no summer, no winter. Strain your mind if you will and try to imagine that which cannot be imagined: try to picture if you can a Universe which has not yet been born, a world which has not yet come into existence, an earth which has no being.
No matter what else we may say about the beginning of the world, on one thing both the religious and the non-religious are in rather close harmony, namely, that there was a time when the world did not exist, and that the Universe in which we live had a beginning.
The very first verse of the Bible tells us that the heaven and the earth had a beginning.
The second verse of the Bible tells us that "the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." Modern science, with all of its resources and accumulated knowledge and tremendous efforts to explore the past and the vast regions of space, still has not altered to any great degree the nearly universal belief that there was a time when the present Universe did not exist and that in the beginning there was formlessness and emptiness.
A second fact which can be said about the beginning of the Universe is that it came into being as a creative act of God. Genesis 1:1 says that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." John 1:1-3 tells us that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made."
There are those, of course, who say that there is no God. They try to rule out the existence of God, and grasp at almost any theory under the sun to try to account for the creation of the Universe other than that an all wise, all powerful, righteous and holy God brought it into existence.
I suppose one of the most popular theories as to how the world came into being among those who try to rule out the existence of God is the theory that the material in the Universe has always existed and that through countless ages, through multiplied millions and billions of years, lifeless matter was acted upon by non-intelligent natural forces until the interaction finally brought forth the Universe in which we now live and life as we now know it. The idea is that, given lifeless matter, the natural forces such as wind, heat, energy, cold, and the like, and given sufficient time, the natural forces working with the lifeless matter and tumbling it around hither and yon on and on ad infinitum would eventually produce an orderly Universe and life and the world in which we now live.
Well, using the same sort of reasoning, it is even more logical for me to think that if I would gather together enough lumber and brick and mortar and nails and roofing and leave them piled up together long enough, the wind and rain and sun and heat and cold and all of the other natural forces would eventually shuffle them around into the form of a nice house. Or to think that if I would pitch a bunch of newsprint into a washing machine and tumble them around long enough, say for a couple of billion years, they would eventually be arranged into the form of a dictionary or some other book with every word spelled correctly, every punctuation mark in its place, every paragraph properly indented, and so forth.
No! The idea that the Universe came into existence as the result of mere chance, or as the result of the non-intelligent forces of the world interacting upon lifeless matter is simply absurd and ridiculous! No logical, reasonable and intelligent person who thinks the matter through properly can come from a nonexistent Universe to a wonderful world such as we live in as a result of blind chance or by the pathway of physical force without intelligent direction.
I realize that there are vast numbers of people in the world today who try to rule God out in regards to the act of creation. But their efforts to rule Him out as the Creator are not based on sound thinking and intelligent reason. If the root of the matter were brought to light, I have the feeling that perhaps a tremendous number of those who try to rule God out of the act of creation do so because they are not willing to bring their lives into harmony with His will, not because the evidence is against belief in an Omnipotent, Eternal Creator!
The only adequate and sensible explanation of how the Universe came into existence is that set forth by our text, namely, that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth - that all things were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made.
One of the simple principles of science is that for every effect, there must be a cause sufficient to produce it. Nothing happens unless something caused it to happen. And nothing happens without an adequate cause.
I have here in my hand a watch, a little instrument so constructed that if I take proper care of it, it will indicate the time of the day or mark the passing of time. Now if you tell me that over in Switzerland there is a factory where men bring together the materials needed for the making of watches and where men with instruments and tools and knowledge work upon that material until it has been formed into watches, that makes sense and I can readily believe it. You have spoken of a cause sufficient to bring a watch into being. But if you try to tell me that a housefly lit upon a biscuit, took a bite out of that biscuit, and then chewed it around for awhile and thereby produced a watch that weighs thousands of times more than the fly, you needn't expect me to swallow a bunch of stuff like that. Your cause is simply not adequate to produce any such effect as the watch I hold here in my hand.
Every created thing must have a creator. And the creator must be sufficiently great and powerful to account for the thing created.
We live in a wonderful Universe so tremendous and vast that the finite mind of man cannot even imagine it ... a Universe so wonderfully made that mortal man does not have the mental capacity to understand it all ... a Universe that at one time did not even exist. The only sensible explanation of how it came into being is that it was created by One Whose power and might were adequate to produce it. The entire Universe stands therefore as plain evidence that there is a Divine and all-powerful Creator great enough to create a world such as this.
"The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament sheweth His handywork."
But not only does the created Universe demand as an explanation for it a Creator with sufficient power to bring it into existence: it also demands One with sufficient intelligence and knowledge to put it together and make it work.
We were speaking about my watch a few moments ago. If someone tried to tell me that a housefly made it out of a speck of a biscuit, I wouldn't believe it because the cause is not powerful enough to produce the effect. But if someone tried to tell me that it was produced by a big White-Faced bull, I still wouldn't believe it, not because the cause was not big enough to produce the effect nor because the cause was not powerful enough to produce the effect, but because the cause was not intelligent enough and did not have ability enough to produce the effect. A White-Faced bull is big enough to make a watch. It is powerful enough to make a watch. But it has neither the intelligence nor the ability to make a watch.
Now, to have a Universe such as now exists, a sensible explanation demands that it have a Creator not only powerful enough to bring it into being, but also a Creator with sufficient ability and intelligence to bring it into being and fit it together.
Who, then, or what, then, other than an all-powerful, all-wise, eternal God could create such a world as this? Does blind chance have the ability and the intelligence to bring such a world into being? Do the non-intelligent natural forces of the Universe have enough ability and intelligence to bring such a wonderful world into existence? Certainly not!
Were I to gather the materials with which to build a house into one place and then wait for them to fall together as the result of blind chance, they would lie there and rot before such would happen, though they might be treated against rot so effectively that it would take a billion years for them to disintegrate.
Were I to gather the materials with which to build a house into one place and then wait for the natural forces of the Universe to assemble them for me into a Methodist parsonage, though I waited until Gabriel blew his trumpet and time were no more, the house still would not be built. The truth of the matter is that the natural forces would come a thousand times nearer to scattering the materials to distant places than they would to assembling them into the orderly position needed to bring the house into being.
The story is told of two outstanding, highly educated scientists who were teachers in the same college and who lived next door to each other. They were close friends in their work, but one was an atheist who did not believe in God, while the other was a Bible-believing Christian. Both were brilliant men and keen thinkers, and had many serious discussions about the origin of the Universe. While the atheist did not seem to resent his friend's efforts to convert him, he held to the belief that the Christian belief in God and creation simply didn't make sense. It was his belief that the whole world and everything in it just evolved through the forces inherent in it - in short, that the world just created itself without the direction of an intelligent Being beyond and greater than itself.
Finally the Christian professor tried a different approach to get his friend to see the light. He ordered a beautiful plastic globe of the world to be made by an expert along that line. It was made as nearly as possible to exact scale with the continents, islands, mountains, rivers and so forth being set forth in proper perspective and in proper relationship one to another. When the globe was completed, it was set upon a stand, tilted at just the same degree as the axis of the earth. It was truly a work of art and craftsmanship.
When it was completed, the Christian professor had it put in his study and invited his unbelieving friend in to see it. Impressed by its beauty and the perfection of it, the atheist studied it for awhile, and then said, "Who in the world made that beautiful thing for you?"
"Quit joking! Who made it for you?"
"Nowhere! It just happened. Maybe it just started from a blob of protoplasm back yonder a few million years ago and..!"
"Stop! Stop!" said the unbelieving professor. "You are making a fool out of me. I will be a fool no longer. I see it all now."
Can a little plastic globe, perhaps a couple of feet in diameter, a perfect scale model of the earth on which we live, come into existence without someone with sufficient power and ability and intelligence bringing it into being? Of course not!
Then how can any thinking, sensible, intelligent person believe that a great Universe such as this - a Universe that at one time did not exist - a Universe so vast that it is beyond the power of the human mind to even picture it, a Universe so perfectly made that every atom, every cell, every part of it has its place, a Universe so complex that the greatest scientist among the sons of men does not fully understand the make-up of a little flower in a crannied wall - how can any thinking, sensible, reasonable person believe that such a world as this was created by any other than an all-powerful, all-wise, eternal God?
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The world in which we live came from the Hand of God Himself! It was God Who brought the Universe into being. It was God Who set the stars in the heavens and put the planets in their orbits. It was God Who placed life upon the earth and breathed into man the breath of life and made him a living soul.
We were not present when God laid the foundations of the earth and flung the stars into space and brought form and being out of chaos and emptiness. But the entire world stands as an ever-present testimony to the fact that in the beginning God was present. By Him were all things made that were made. And it is the fool - not the sensible, right-thinking person - who says in his heart, "There is no God." (Psalm 14:1; 53:1)
In the beginning God did indeed create the heaven and the earth. Let us keep that in mind, for He Who is our creator is the One Who knows why we were created and it is to Him that we look for the meaning of the Universe and of life. Yes, and since we came forth from His Hand, and are His by right of creation, it is to Him that we must give an account for the way we live in His Universe. Let us pray...